Drag and Drop Prioritizing in MYN-1MTD Apps

One of my favorite features for any to-do list app is drag and drop prioritizing. By that I mean the ability to drag an app in the task list up or down to reposition it—thus changing its relative priority. Many apps have it, others don’t, but it’s a real time-saving advantage if they do.

Rare in Apps with MYN Settings

While this feature is common for many apps, it is rarer to see drag and drop prioritizing in apps once they are set up for MYN. That’s because with MYN settings, tasks are sorted first on urgency zone groups and then by start date (with newest tasks at top). And in most apps, once you designate sorting based on a field value like that, by necessity the app turns off the ability to drag-position the sorting. Rather, to re-sort the tasks, you need to manually change the value in the field on the task (usually priority or start date), and that normally takes a few more steps. So it’s slower.

Some apps, even with MYN settings, still have some drag-sort capability. In Windows Desktop Outlook tasks, for example, even when set up for MYN, you can drag tasks across urgency zone (priority) groups and change the priority value that way. And within a priority group, you can drag-sort them within a given start date value, if there are more than one tasks with the same start date. But you cannot drag beyond a given date.

And again, all other apps lose all drag-sorting capability once you apply MYN settings.

Common in 1MTD Apps

Drag sorting is common in apps set up for 1MTD because 1MTD does not rely on start date sorting within urgency zone groups; no sorting at all is needed. So that allows the app to retain any inherent drag-sort capability they have.

The three best examples of this are Microsoft To Do, Google Tasks, and Todoist. All three have an excellent drag-sort capability, and all work well for 1MTD. That’s the primary reason I recommend these first for 1MTD users. Of these three, only Todoist has enough features to also be used for MYN, so choose it if you think you might upgrade later. But note, once you add the MYN settings, Todoist loses its drag-sort ability.

Most other apps, even with 1MTD settings, don’t have any drag-sort ability. For example Toodledo and TaskAngel don’t have it. Because of that, I don’t recommend those as your best 1MTD choices.

Best of Both Worlds

The best of both worlds would be to have an app that, even once set up for MYN start date sorting, also lets you drag tasks up and down and change the start date when doing so. But there is currently no app that allows that.

That’s why I have been in conversations with the maker of TaskAngel Online, a recommended MYN app, asking him if it can be done. He’s a big fan of MYN, and so says “yes,” he’ll do it—he has added it to his development list. I’ll let you know when that upgrade is released. However, his is a small company and such development could take a while.

In the meantime, choose the app that best meets your MYN or 1MTD needs. I give recommendations, at this link.